Tag: Neil Turkewitz

Podcast: Talking NFTs and Grift with Neil Turkewitz & David Lowery

In this episode, I talk to artists’ rights activists Neil Turkewitz and David Lowery about the scope and nature of fraud in the NFT trade–and why NFTs are yet another false promise to help independent artists in the digital age. 

Read Neil Turkewitz’s interview with artist bor, a member of the activist group @NFTTheft, and read his follow-up piece about the scope of fraud on the site OpenSea.

Read David Lowery’s post about the HitPiece NFT ripoff. 

Read Aaron Moss’s post about HitPiece at CopyrightLately.

Check out Molly White’s blog Web3 is going just great.

And because it came up in discussion, one Cambridge University study finds that mining Bitcoin uses 121.36 terrawatt-hours per year–or more than the nation of Argentina.

Jonathan Mann weighs in.

Photo source by: inmicco

YouTube’s Tactics Re. Article 13 Are the Real Concern

When a media conglomerate is the subject of a news story, we expect the news organization owned by the parent company to acknowledge that relationship in its reporting.  So, when ABC News reports a story, positive or negative, about the Disney Corporation, it is standard practice that the reporter remind viewers that she is talking about her ultimate employer.  Unfortunately, the paradigm is very different when it comes to new media companies like YouTube, which can leverage the global reach of its platform (fueled by the capabilities of Google) to evangelize any message that serves its policy interests. 

In a new guest post on The Trichordist, Volker Rieck lays out the manner in which YouTube uses the power the platform to influence public debate (i.e. scare the bejesus out of people) when seeking a policy outcome favorable to the company.  After CEO Susan Wojcicki addressed the community of YouTube creators in a blog post and video warning them that Article 13 of the EU Digital Single Market Directive threatens their livelihoods, she got the response she was looking for.  As Rieck describes…

“Wild claims circulated that YouTube channel operators would already see their livelihoods threatened in 2019, that Article 13 was a censorship law, and so on. The platform helped the videos made in response to its own appeal to become highly visible and to reach wide audiences by displaying them on user home pages and by categorizing them as “trending.” Three of the top 5 videos in the YouTube trending charts at the beginning of November transported these dystopian visions.”

So, apropos my intro, even if the claims and assumptions made about Article 13 were accurate—and they are not—it should be more than a little frightening that a corporation with the scope of influence of YouTube can so effectively shape reality in regard to any matter of public policy.  To quote a recent post by Neil Turkewitz, responding to the EFF’s lopsided approach to Article 13, he summarizes the current draft of the directive in the following sober terms:

“… it requires large commercial platforms who are in the business of content distribution (defined in the legislation) to license the works that they are distributing, and to take steps to guard against the distribution of works for which it is not licensed. While the use of filters is not explicitly mentioned (unlike an earlier version of the Article), it is anticipated by most parties that most covered platforms would discharge their obligations to prevent distribution of infringing materials through the use of available technologies — either bespoke like ContentID, or off the shelf from a supplier like AudibleMagic. 

It is also important to keep in mind that, while it is timely for all creators (including YouTubers) to become better informed about Article 13 and to weigh in on the merits of the proposals, it will take at least a couple of years for all of the member states to implement the directive.  Thus, YouTube’s efforts to panic its entrepreneurial creators this month should be reason enough to question both its methods and its motives.  Is it really about those creators, or is it about a $160-billion company not wanting to pay license fees to other creators?

On the one hand, this type of scare-mongering is business as usual.  A corporation or industry doesn’t want the responsibility or cost of complying with a proposed law, and so tells consumers or employees (or both) that they will suffer if the policy in question were to be implemented.  But on the other hand, when a media platform like YouTube claims that a new policy will have “unintended consequences” like shutting down various channels, the company is uniquely empowered to spread its self-serving message and to manipulate user experiences in order to prioritize that message over other narratives.  As Rieck puts it …

“Ultimately, the way YouTube channels have been pressed into the service of the platform demonstrates just how urgent the need for measured political regulation of the platform has now become and how easy it is for the platform to exploit the ecosystem of private and semi-professional pseudo-journalism it hosts for its own ends.”

I would go so far as to at least entertain the possibility that YouTube could shut down or severely limit various channels as a false-flag tactic aimed at sowing further resentment against proposals like Article 13.  Perhaps the company would never engage in such an underhanded scheme, but really, what’s to stop them?  After all, they are already willing to engage in bad-faith PR designed to mislead YouTubers about the true nature of the EU directive.  In her open letter to YouTubers, CEO Susan Wojcicki, states:

“Article 13 as written threatens to shut down the ability of millions of people — from creators like you to everyday users — to upload content to platforms like YouTube. And it threatens to block users in the EU from viewing content that is already live on the channels of creators everywhere. This includes YouTube’s incredible video library of educational content, such as language classes, physics tutorials and other how-to’s.”

Really?  Even if we set aside the fact that Article 13 is a proposal to develop protocols that will take time and further negotiations to implement (if they happen at all), this statement implies that a very high percentage of YouTube channels rely substantially on unlicensed copyrighted material.  If that’s the case, why the should that status quo be preserved?  I’ve seen a lot of funny, informative, creative videos produced for YouTube that do not make any use of other creators’ protected works. 

For the YouTube creators who do use some portion of protected works, Wojcicki raises a subtle but important dichotomy when she addresses them as “a diverse community of creators who are building the next generation of media companies.”  Because that sounds to any reasonable person like a business enterprise.  And if these YouTubers are indeed engaged in business, then why shouldn’t they have the same responsibilities as every other type of professional creator to work within boundaries that respect copyrights?

It seems that when it suits the platform’s interests, we are meant to think of YouTubers as either hapless children (remember Lawrence Lessig?), who cannot be expected to know about copyright; or we are meant to think of them as the vanguard generation of new creative professionals, who should not be burdened by copyright.  Notice how, in either case, YouTube seeks to avoid its responsibility—as the only multi-billion-dollar media company in this narrative—by aligning its interests with the interchangeable interests of its users.

I recognize that underlying YouTube’s ability to frighten this class of creators about Article 13 is a litany of mistakes and abuses of existing models like Content ID or the DMCA notice and takedown process.  YouTube creators have had their own works targeted, either through error or willful misuse of these systems; and bad actors have targeted works they do not legally represent. 

While the anecdotes of bad-faith use of these systems are true, they feed a broader narrative which is not true:  that abuse of content-filtering systems is so rampant that the status quo is preferable to any attempt to make these systems work better for all stakeholders.  The status quo may be working for YouTube’s bottom line, but it certainly is not working for rights holders whose works are infringed at uncontrollable volume on the platform.   In fact, I have yet to see any data that even indicates that filtering or DMCA abuse is anywhere near the scope of infringement.  

Meanwhile, assuming Article 13 becomes law in the EU, YouTube creators have at least a couple of years to assess the extent to which their channels truly rely on the protected works of other authors.  Those who do not use other people’s works should be entirely unaffected; and if they are, their complaint may be properly directed at YouTube rather than Article 13.  Creators who use protected works legally—either by license or fair use—should play a particularly active (but informed) role in these developments.  

As professional creators, I suspect YouTube creator interests will increasingly share common cause with other types of creators.  In fact,  YouTube’s July launch of its Copyright Match system to address creator-to-creator disputes certainly suggests that YouTubers care about their own copyrights and should, therefore, take a proactive rather than a reactive look at the goals of Article 13.  After all, with regard to the way Wojcicki’s letter spawned a lot of misinformed outrage, it’s worth noting that just because this class of creators uses YouTube is no reason to let YouTube use them.

Source illustration by studiostoks

Turkewitz: Disruption, Fear and Slippery Slopes: Baby Steps in Building a Better Internet

(republished by permission)

The biggest story of 2017? To my mind, there is no contest — the broad emergence of an awareness that the irresponsibility masquerading as Internet freedom represented a threat to global societies and to cherished aspects of our humanity, and that a course correction was badly needed. While recognition of the fact that rewarding lack of accountability would likely incentivize anti-social and illegal conduct took longer than it should have, such an awareness came to fruition throughout 2017. Whether motivated by concerns about sex trafficking or the prevalence of other internet-enabled crimes, fake news, foreign government interference in elections, monopoly or monopsony power, or the perceived political or cultural biases of platforms, the question at the end of 2017 wasn’t whether the current legal framework for platform responsibility should be amended, but how. It became clear that the twin pillars upholding the current lack of accountability in the internet ecosystem — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and Section 512 of the DMCA, each of which was adopted at the dawn of the commercial internet, would need to be reexamined and a new framework established. Ideas ranged from minor course corrections such as amending Section 230 to address issues related to sex trafficking (SESTA) and changes to the DMCA to require greater use of technical tools to prevent infringement going beyond mere takedown, to proposals to broadly regulate the operation of platforms given perceived monopoly power over the last mile (access to, and influence over, users). In short, there appeared to be universal acknowledgement that the status quo wasn’t working, and some — as yet unspecified — change was needed.

But apparently, if not unsurprisingly, this acknowledgement that the status quo needs to be disrupted isn’t quite shared by everyone. In an end of the year post by EFF’s Jeremy Malcom entitled “Time to Rethink Copyright Safe Harbors? 2017 in Review,” Malcolm writes: “They [safe harbors such as the provisions of Section 512 of the DMCA] are as vital to the Internet today as they have ever been.” His argument is summed up neatly here: “Without that legal protection, it would be impossible for such platforms to operate as they do today.” Well, yeah. That’s the very point of effecting change — to modify how platforms operate. Malcom apparently looks at the internet and sees the flowering of culture and the emancipation of humanity. I want his internet. And I am prepared to work to achieve it rather than pretending it is our reality, and without employing absurd reductionism as if we were holding a referendum on whether technological progress and the internet are good or bad things. The internet is a remarkable tool for expanding communications and access to information in a truly transformational manner. The question is: can we be better stewards, and how can we most fully achieve its potential for enhancing the welfare of societies. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but nor should we let the good stand in the way of the better.

It would also be nice, but alas probably a bridge too far, to engage in dialogue about solutions without fear-mongering and labeling. In order for Malcolm’s narrative to hold, he has to take the individual creator out of the equation and to pretend that somehow the cultural marketplace is of no concern to actual creators — only to the ominous dark media lords, the dreaded “Big Content.” The ones who brought you SOPA. You know who I am talking about. The Man. Aiming only to defend a failing and exploitative business model. Malcolm works hard to reinforce this false picture, repeatedly referring to “copyright industry lobbyists,” “industry representatives,” “Big Content,” and of course, EFF’s favorite…”monopoly rents.” And suggesting that these industry trolls working in secret to destroy the internet would have gone unnoticed but for EFF’s vigilance. All of which leads to his central lie:

“But Big Content isn’t satisfied with such laws, because they place responsibility on copyright holders to request the removal of infringing content, and because the availability of free, user-uploaded content supposedly depresses the value of mainstream, paid entertainment. The content industry thinks a filtered, regulated Internet that suppresses user-uploaded content will deliver them higher revenues, and they describe the absence of these imaginary monopoly rents as a “value gap.”

There is no part of this that reflects the world we actually inhabit.

1-Large media companies (whatever that means) are not alone in calling for reform of safe harbors. A quick review of comments and submissions in the EU and US will reveal a creative community unified in its support for reform: businesses and labor, major studios and indies, individual creators and trade associations. And our problem is not that safe harbors place responsibility on copyright owners to request removal, but rather that they fail to place corresponding obligations on platforms to take meaningful action when they know, or should know, of infringing materials. Existing safe harbors in the US, EU and elsewhere create incentives for platforms to avoid knowledge of infringement, and then only obligate platforms to take remedial action which fails to provide an actual remedy. We need to reset the incentives to breathe life into the legislative intent behind existing legislation to promote cooperation in addressing infringement and expanding the digital marketplace.

2-The notion that the creative community is worried about competition to “mainstream, paid entertainment” from free user-uploaded content is truly outrageous. The creative community has no issue with creators determining that they want to offer their works for free. The problem is when users decide to upload the works of others without the creator’s permission. And yes, forcing creators to directly compete against unauthorized versions of their own works is both prejudicial and fundamentally unfair. That doesn’t require a lot of imagination, just a basic sense of fairness and justice.

3-Malcom asserts that there are two alternatives: his free and open internet, or the copyright industries’ filtered, regulated internet that suppresses freedom of expression and delivers monopoly rents. Reductionism at its very worst. The status quo, or some Orwellian nightmare of control. But of course, this is pure fantasy. The core issues related to safe harbors are not about regulation, but rather address the development of a technology-neutral way to achieve the kind of responsibility we would expect in the offline environment. Not more, and not less. To eliminate incentives for recklessness and willful blindness. And yes, to change the status quo. That’s what gets Malcom — he clings to the world he knows, and lives on a slippery slope. But when we resist doing what’s right out of fear of some future unknown, then something is fundamentally wrong.

An article published just yesterday neatly captured our reality: “The DMCA and CDA protections enabled a few Silicon Valley giants to become sinfully rich, with a concentration of power not seen since the 1920s. The digital revolution could have succeeded without the ‘disruption’ and their disregard for copyright and content creators.”

I have a modest proposal for 2018: let’s abandon evangelical fervor in favor of policy-making grounded in the observable universe. Let’s acknowledge that lack of accountability will produce unaccountable actions. And let’s be prepared to challenge the status quo to produce the kind of outcomes that enhance societal welfare. A recent article in Ars Technica entitled “How do you change the most important law in Internet history? Carefully.” While the underlying notion that Section 230 is “the most important law in Internet history” represents, as Devlin Hartline has noted, a fetishization of Section 230, I nevertheless agree with the proposition that we must exercise care. But Ars, unlike EFF, doesn’t ask whether the present framework should be amended, only how.

Image by Aenota